Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2016

Editor in chief Michele Ferrara Scientific advisor Prof. Enrico Maria Corsini Publisher Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. Via Bonomelli, 106 25049 Iseo - BS - ITALY email info@astropublishing.com Internet Service Provider Aruba S.p.A. Loc. Palazzetto, 4 52011 Bibbiena - AR - ITALY Copyright All material in this magazine is, unless otherwise stated, property of Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. or included with permission of its author. Reproduction or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, with- out the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of copyright law. A single copy of the materials available through this course may be made, solely for personal, non- commercial use. Users may not distrib- ute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form, whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the copyright holder of the materials. The publisher makes available itself with having rights for possible not characterized iconographic sources. Advertising - Administration Astro Publishing di Pirlo L. Via Bonomelli, 106 25049 Iseo - BS - ITALY email admin@astropublishing.com ASTROFILO l’ November-December 2016 BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION FREELY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE INTERNET English edition of the magazine S U M M A R Y 4 12 20 22 24 30 34 38 42 18 The second biggest meteorite discovered Its name is Gancedo, it has a diameter of a pair of meters, it is metallic and weights more than 30 tons. The researchers from the Asociación Chaqueña de Astronomía dug it in the past September, inside the Argentine territory called Campo del Cielo, where in ancient times the most frightening meteorite... ALMA uncovers secrets of giant space blob An international team using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), along with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and other telescopes, has discovered the true nature of a rare object in the distant Universe called a Lyman-alpha Blob (LAB). Up to now astronomers... ALMA catches stellar cocoon with curious chemistry A team of Japanese researchers have used the power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a massive star known as ST11 in our neighbouring dwarf galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Emission from a number of molecular gases was detected. These indicated that the team... Hubble takes close-up look at disintegrating comet NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured one of the sharpest, most detailed observations of a comet breaking apart, which occurred 67 million miles from Earth. In a series of images taken over a three-day span in January 2016, Hubble revealed 25 building-size blocks made of a mixture of ice and dust that... The wonders of Murray Buttes During its long march at the foot of Mount Sharp, NASA's Curiosity rover studied for about a month the surface conformation of the Murray Buttes region, and just before leaving for other destinations it beamed back to Earth some spectacular images that show with great definition the stratification of some... Highest resolution image of Eta Carinae Led by Gerd Weigelt from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, a team of astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory to take a unique image of the Eta Carinae star system in the Carina Nebula. This colossal binary system... Hubble detects giant ‘cannonballs’ shooting from star Great balls of fire! NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected superhot blobs of gas, each twice as massive as the planet Mars, being ejected near a dying star. The plasma balls are zooming so fast through space it would take only 30 minutes for them to travel from Earth to the Moon. This stellar “cannon fire”... Black hole hidden within its own exhaust Supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun, are found at the centers of galaxies. Many of these galactic behemoths are hidden within a thick doughnut-shape ring of dust and gas known as a torus. Previous observations suggest these cloaking, tire-like structures are formed... Rosetta mission: a fairy tale ending After more than two years of intensive and close-up investigation of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Rosetta probe reunited again with its Philae lander on the smaller lobe of the comet. The scientific material produced by the mission is unprecedented and sheds new light not only on the formation and evolution... Hubble helps find light-bending world with two suns A distant planet orbiting two stars, found by its warping of spacetime, has been confirmed using ob- servations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The planet’s mass caused what is known as a microlensing event, where light is bent by an object’s gravitational field. The event was observed in...